Police probe arson after fire kills 4 in Wrigleyville

Alert issued for woman in series of area blazes

Four people died Saturday morning in a fast-moving apartment fire in Wrigleyville that police are investigating as a possible arson and that may be connected to several other small fires set hours earlier in the neighborhood.

Police issued a communitywide alert for a "person of interest" in the fires.

The apartment fire was reported just before 7 a.m. in a three-story building at 3553 N. Fremont St. and appeared to have started in a stairwell between the second and third floors and spread quickly, O'Donnell said.

The four victims, three men and one woman, were in the only occupied unit on the third floor in the rear of the building.

A 21-year-old man in the apartment jumped out of a window before firefighters arrived and was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he remained in stable condition with a fractured pelvis and wrist, a police source said.

Killed in the fire was Jennifer Carlson, 24, a single mother of a 4-year-old boy. She was working two waitressing jobs to put herself through college in hopes of becoming a clinical massage therapist, said her aunt, Cheryl Greenlee. Carlson was the youngest of three children and graduated from a high school in Belvidere, moving to Chicago two years ago to attend college, her aunt said.

"She was such a sweet girl. She was getting her life together and was excited about finishing school," Greenlee said.

Three men in their early 20s also were killed, but they were not identified because their bodies were so badly burned, the Cook County medical examiner's office said. Dental records will be used to confirm their identities.

O'Donnell said several samples of debris from the scene were sent to the state crime lab. A police source close to the investigation said a fire dog with the state fire marshal's office found an area where an accelerant may have been used, but O'Donnell would not confirm that.

Smaller fires investigated

Authorities also are investigating at least three small fires set on a stairway, sidewalk and front porch on nearby North Reta Avenue around midnight Friday. On Saturday, charred remains of newsprint sat in the front yards of several apartment buildings on the street.

O'Donnell said witnesses on Reta provided details for a composite sketch of the person of interest. She is described as African-American, 5 feet 8 inches, 110 pounds to 120 pounds and between 30 and 40 years old. She was wearing a teal blue shirt, gray sweatpants, and at the time of the fires may have been wearing gray plastic bags on her feet.

Police are checking with area shelters for the woman. Belmont Area Police Cmdr. Thomas Byrne said the woman was not known to authorities.

"There have not been fires like this," Byrne said. "Especially in such a short time and with that frequency."

Nobody has told police of seeing the woman near the Fremont building.

Authorities asked residents to be alert for anyone suspicious and to throw away stray paper products.

"Be aware. If people are walking around, take notice," O'Donnell said. "If they see them in their gangways, call 911. They should also remove all available materials from their porch area, such as discarded newspapers [and fliers.]"

Officials said the fire on Fremont moved so quickly that the victims likely did not have a chance to escape. Though the fire started on the front stairs, the victims may have opened the door there, feeding the fire, O'Donnell said.

Carlson's family drove to Chicago from Belvidere and spent much of Saturday near the apartment building, waiting for word about her and her son, Blake. They feared he might have been in the building. But late in the afternoon, family members rejoiced and cried when a friend brought the child to the scene. Carlson had sent her son to a baby-sitter because she was working a late shift, her aunt said.

"We were just so relieved to know that Blake is OK," she said. "But this is just devastating to our family."

Two of Greenlee's siblings died in the last year, and Carlson's mother used their deaths to explain Carlson's death to her son, Greenlee said.

"She told him, `They went to heaven, so Mommy had to go to heaven to be with them,'" Greenlee said. "How much a 4-year-old understands, we don't know."

Greenlee said the family planned to return to Belvidere, which is near Rockford, Sunday to make arrangements for Carlson's funeral.

Paul Feschuk, 40, who lives in a three-flat in the 3500 block of North Reta Avenue, said he heard smoke detectors going off about 11 p.m. Friday and saw a woman outside poking at a fire in front of his building. The woman was dressed in dark clothing and appeared to be burning a sweater and newspapers on the sidewalk, he said.